“Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam,” a Poem by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva

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“Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam”

She sits on the corner of her bed, head tilted to one side. Licks the tip of
her thumb and flips through the thick booklet, trying to remember where
we left off. Two weeks ago, the mint-colored Bronco parked in the neigh-
bor’s driveway. The youngest one left in handcuffs and they haven’t heard
from her since. My mother sighs, “Pobre de México, tan lejos de Dios y
tan cerca de los Estados Unidos.” I am ten. And so far away from God, I
feel. Angelo and I take turns teaching her, tracking English like dirt into
our home. The only savior they tell us we need. If only it could be that
simple and true. To build her a life out of mud and syllables, of saliva,
colonies, and state capitals, treaties and phrases coined during a long-ago
war, written in a textbook-pretty cursive. Give me liberty or give me death,
she repeats. Even the birds’ names she has to learn. And after all those eve-
nings, rehearsing and memorizing the mythology of it, no one could pre-
pare her for the early morning raid, the strip searches at the border, the child
who gets deported. If you ask me, it’s hard to believe in God, especially
when years later she’s still forced to dodge slurs and bullets from a white
man who aims a gun at her in the supermarket. Give me liberty or give me
death. But for now, she’ll settle at the corner of her bed, skimming through
lines and sentences, narrowing her eyes as her fingers move to the follow-
ing page, mouthing out words, unfolding a wrinkled map she smooths open
with her hands, pausing before using her index finger to trace the dotted
lines. She pores over these texts for hours and hours. Focused. Determined.
Always pensive and gentle. Careful but intentional, like when combing for
ticks on the head of her firstborn son.